If you don't have something nice to say: you may have discovered that something sucks.

C raziness took place via email today. It seems someone calling himself "Hortense Wiffin, Esq." (hortense@rocketmail.com) decided to offer some constructive criticism to Elly Jordaan's diary. Elly is well known on the Web for her extensive collection of awards, lovers and backgrounds. I have collected the entire exchange, partly gleaned from a diary criticism listserver that recently went into operation (to which copies of the exchange were mailed). Hortense's responses are in blue and Elly's are in red. My editorial comments are italicized and green. Subject: Elly, Elly, your journal needs help! Sender: "Hortense Wiffin, Esq." i read your journal every day, but the 100K + tables that constitute the index to your pages is way past bloated. it reminds me of a big fat old pig in need of a diet. why in god's name do you have so many months set up for pages that haven't been created yet? i realize you think cardigan is just the balls, but his indexing scheme is clunky and not very helpful. a much better approach is to have a heirarchicalstructure to your months and days: pages for each individual month with links on those to your individual daily pages. your frontpage needs to be stripped down, with fewer links!! for help on how todo this, might i recommend looking at Nilknarf, Ceej's Battered BlackBook, OZ Diary, Musings of the Gus, or Estrogen. oh, and your logo, at 25K, is excessively large. make it a smallerGIF with fewer colours! and it should be much less than 500 pixelswide! other than that, your page is great. these few changes, and you'll bein archipelago yet!!! --hortense 1. I don't give a rat's ass about being in Archipelago. 2. I have a daily readership of approximately 100 people who have nocomplaints about my journal. I really do not appreciate your negativity. If you can't find somethingnice to say, keep your mouth shut. even if you don't fix these problems with your page immediately, i feelconfident that you will someday if i plant the seen now. i recall whengabby complained about your BOLD and ITALIC text being unreadable, you proceeded to bust on her pretentious use of the word "uber"...but nowthankfully your text is not godawful BOLD or sucky ITALIC...it'sreadable! Oh, you are such a bitch. If for no other reason than that, I'll not takeyour suggestions seriously and I'll make sure I leave my page the way *I*want it. It's my page. Butt out. Your email is now being filtered intothe trash can, so don't waste your time writing. And just where is yourperfection of a site? At this point Hortense had to get a new Rocketmail account to avoid being filtered. Subject: my favourite web diary Sender: Whortense Wiffeen, dreamdweller@rocketmail.com i think cory glen rocks harder than anyone else on the web to answer your question i had to get a WHOLE NEW email account atrocketmail because of your filtering, damnit! --hortense And I'll keep filtering. I'll also pursue legal action against you forharassment if this continues. I've done that before with annoying peopleand I have no qualms about doing it again. You're a coward and an ass anddon't deserve the time I'm spending replying to you. You've fucked with thewrong person, lady. Again Hortense was forced to get a new Rocketmail account to avoid being filtered. Wartense Wiffyn, jordaan@rocketmail.com i have no desire to make your life miserable; i was just trying togive you a few helpful pointers; it seems you are new to this webpage making business, and newbies always need a little help. HTML iseasy, but there are things you only learn from criticism! for my part, i've benefitted enormously from your info about polyamory.now i have three or four (depending on how you count) lovers! --hortense I am hardly new to webpage publishing. I don't have a 40 meg site thatsprang up in the last two weeks. In fact, I have commercial accountsforwhom I design websites and I make a VERT nice income from it. Get alifeand go bother someone else. I'm quite tired of you. No more emailswill beanswered, so there's really no point in writing to me. Oh, you mightfindit interesting to know that my site is the most highly awarded on theweb.The total currently stands at 578, so even you should be able to seethatyour opinion is a minority one. I pity you; it must be awful to lackbothbrains and tact. And so the exchange ended. To read her inevitable interpretation of events, go to her June 14th entry. I can't wait! It seems to me someone has been reading too much about pranks of late! Just in case Elly flips out and pulls down her site for good, I'm including the text of her email to Rocketmail which she posted in today's entry. To: webmaster@rocketmail.com From: "Elaine M. Jordaan" [elly@dreamdweller.com] Subject: harassment by one of your users Cc: scooter@newreach.net, lurvedoc@brisbane.dialix.oz.au, cardigan@bee.net, diary-crit-l@planetgregory.org Dear Sir/Madam: I am writing to you in the hopes that you can assist me with a problem that has arisen with one of your users. This woman, who identifies herself only by "Hortense," has sent me harassing emails throughout the morning. I've set up filters to automatically send her emails to the trash, but every time I do so she opens a new rocketmail account. One of them even used my domain name, i.e. dreamdweller@rocketmail.com I have, of course, copies of all her emails and would be happy to send them to you if necessary. I'm hoping you can do somthing to assist me in putting an end to this harassment. Her emails came out of left field; they were neither solicited or provoked by me in any way. I have no idea who she is, no idea why she has targeted me for her vitriol and bitterness, and no idea why any of this is happening. Though I am in no position to judge, the tone of her emails is indicative of her need for psychiatric treatment. Please, if there is anything you can do to assist me, I implore you to take action. These emails are extremely upsetting to me and I've recently undergone surgery and hospitalization and really am not in a position to deal with someone who seems quite insane. Again, I will be happy to forward her emails to you. The various email accounts she has used are: hortense@rocketmail.com dreamdweller@rocketmail.com jordaan@rocketmail.com "Dreamdweller" is my domain name; "Jordaan" is my last name. I hope with all my heart you can assist me. I don't know how to deal with this lunatic. Sincerely, Elly Elaine M. Jordaan elly@dreamdweller.com Elly's Slice of Cyberpie http://www.dreamdweller.com

It's a rainy dreary day. ISPs such as Comet get more calls on such days, and it's hard to throw together complex HTML (like the above) in such conditions, what with the interruptions. But I'm having a hoot of a good time all the same. I wonder how the intrepid housemates camping in the woods felt this morning when the rain started falling.

---

A


fter work, the evening got off to a slow start. Jessika and Sara had been promising to be in town for Sara's 22nd birthday, which was today. But they hadn't managed to find a ride and weren't gung-ho enough to hitch hike, though there had been word that they might.

Matthew Hart and I attempted to visit Nathan and Janine over on Little High Street, but they're on vacation. A friend of theirs was walking their dog Harvey, who, with his distinctive hairless testacles and perpetual passively concerned visage, is distinct on any sidewalk. Nathan has a hygrometer and we wanted to use it to get an idea of how much alcohol is in Apple & Ale, the cheap microbrew sold at the JPA Fastmart. Based on our unhappy experience, Apple & Ale contains only enough alcohol to warrant the warning label.

We wouldn't have even considered getting gin except that tonight was one of the few during which Zach would be away at work.

We ended up getting a litre of gin at the Pantops ABC store. Splitting the cost of a litre of gin made it seem almost free. We're both so familiar with the experience of contributing the lion's share to every alcohol purchase we make that when when we both are paying and splitting the costs equally, the expense becomes trivial. We knew a litre was enough for us (and Leah, when she got off work). But we had no desire to feed the others, who never have any money and never make any contributions to alcohol purchases but are only too willing to help drink it when it arrives. We wouldn't have even considered getting gin except that tonight was one of the few during which Zach would be away at work.

B


ack at the house, Matthew and I sat drinking gins with tonic and lime on the front porch, avoiding the others as much as possible. They (Monster Boy, Leticia the Brazilian Girl and Deya) cast jealous glances at our drinks. Originally the plan was to deny them should they ask for gin, but when Deya finally asked for some, Matthew didn't know what to say except okay. I wasn't helpful either. I said that since everyone in the house gets to have sex except for me, I get to drink gin.

Later Jesse and Jasio (freshly back from attending college in Ontario, Canada) arrived. Unlike the others, they actually had money and contributed to the purchase of two five litre boxes of vino from Farmer Jack at Barracks Road. Jasio's arm has healed fully (in terms of function) since the December accident on Carter's Mountain. But it looks pretty bad; a knotty discoloured lump of mangled skin graft covers a four square inch patch over the tendons on his left wrist. As bad as his wrist looks, Jasio is probably better off when all is said and done than is Jessika, who is haunted by facial scars and lingering brain trauma after the accident.

Thus we all set out in the Dodge Dart for one of the most unsuccessful crimes in the history of bumperjacks.

Upon returning from Farmer Jack, Matthew realized he had a flat tire. This really pissed him off, and he was determined to improve the situation by any means necessary. Thus we all set out in the Dodge Dart for one of the most unsuccessful crimes in the history of bumperjacks. The guy who owns the victimized car shouted at us before we could even loosen any lug nuts. Despite my intoxication, I drove rather well as we escaped from the crime scene. Jasio and Jesse, the "lookouts," had of course been off pissing against a Frat House instead of actually looking out.

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